Will parents let young fans enjoy a midnight 'Twilight'?

Tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, vampires will take over movie screens all over the suburbs.

Local parents, meanwhile, have to decide whether their children will be there when it happens.

"Twilight," the movie adaptation of the first book in a wildly popular teen vampire saga, makes its long-awaited debut at midnight.

The books have inspired almost religious passion in their fans, most of whom are teenage girls. Anticipation for the movie is just as high; at recent publicity appearances, cast member Robert Pattinson, who plays vampire/heartthrob Edward Cullen, was greeted by adoring, earsplitting screams from the standing-room-only crowds.

But given that the movie opens before a school day, will parents allow their young "Twilighters" to stay up late to see it?

Debi Irwin says yes. The Fox River Grove mom, a "Twilight" fan herself, plans to take her 15-year-old daughter, Megan, and two of her daughter's friends to a midnight show.

"Normally, I wouldn't agree to something like this," Irwin said. "But these girls are good students, and they all are so excited about this movie. It helps that I'm a fan myself. It will be fun to do this together."

Julie Butler says no. Her 14-year-old daughter, Andrea, made an emotional plea, even mapping out a driving plan that included her college-age cousin, but to no avail. So the two compromised: Andrea will get to see "Twilight" at the first showing after school Friday.

"It's crazy that they're starting this at midnight," Butler, an Arlington Heights resident, said. "I know how big a deal this is for her, but she has to get up early the next morning."

Midnight openings are a fairly common practice in the movie business these days. But in the past, most of these films either came out in the summer, when school's out, or were geared to an older audience, like popular horror films.

With "Twilight," though, a lot of junior-high and high-school students will scramble to get to homeroom on Friday just a few hours after getting into bed.

Megan Irwin isn't too worried about that, however. She said that the thrill of talking about the "Twilight" film with her friends at Barrington High School on Friday will far outweigh the sleepiness she feels.

"I'll be very tired, but I'll feel so good about seeing the movie that I probably won't even notice," she said.

The "Twilight" novels, written by Stephenie Meyer, tell the story of Bella, a teen who's just moved to a new town, and Edward, a handsome boy in Bella's new high school who happens to be a vampire.

The character of Edward has struck a particularly strong chord with "Twilight" fans, who describe him the way girls in the 1980s talked about Jake Ryan from "Sixteen Candles."

"I love Edward Cullen, literally," said Alexandra Mroz, a 17-year-old fan from Darien.

Mroz plans to see the movie at midnight, even though she has a physics test at Downers Grove South High School on Friday.

"It's just too big a deal, I couldn't miss it," she said. "I'm going with my sister, my mom and two neighbors.

"It will be tough getting through school the next day, but how many times does something this cool happen?"

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